a child's security in the face of global warming

8/14/2019 A Child's Security in the Face of Global Warming

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A Child’s Security In the Face Of Global Warming

by

Anne Morddel

This essay first appeared as three posts on the blog, http://www.seasons-south-and-north.co.uk

Fairly regularly now, someone writes in the press of their concern for how muchchildren are being frightened by all the dire talk about global warming. It is frightening. Many adults are frightened as well, though they tend to respond withanger more than with tears and bad dreams. (Perhaps.) Leo Hickman wrote inthe Guardian’s Green Living Blog a post entitled “Are Global Warming andDeforestation Too Scary for Sesame Street?” In it, he discusses how many television shows and publications for children find the subject too frightening toaddress. An earlier Guardian article along these lines is Bjorn Lomborg’s “ScaredSilly Over Climate Change”. He gives examples of frightened and confusedchildren and insists that the press report in a less terrifying manner.

That will never happen. Terror, horror and appealing to our morbid curiosity are what sell the news. It is up to us as teachers, librarians, and parents to find thesolid ground for our children in this sea of fear and confusion.



It is not my intention here to sink into the bog of defending or disputing theclaims about global warming, but I do intend to look at the facts so that we canhelp our children. What is indisputable is that:

• there is a serious crisis of overpopulation of our species, and• there is a serious crisis of pollution of every part of the planet

Our children will have to live with these things and try to amend the situation. We must give them the clarity, strength, courage, and example to do so.

When children are frightened, they take their security from certainties. There canbe no greater certainties than the cycles of the seasons, the months, and days.

These are easily explained to children as brought about by the sun, the earth’s orbitaround it, the earth’s tilt on its axis, the moon’s orbit around the earth, and theearth’s spinning on its axis. Yes, science tells us that the sun will one day burn out,but computer models estimate that will happen in 4 or more billion years, rather along time from now.

Let’s begin with a definition of “forever” as being at least a million years. Thus, wecan safely tell children that all of the following are forever:

• The sun will be in the sky, so we will always have light• The earth will always orbit the sun and earth’s axis will be tilted, so we willalways have seasons• The moon will circle the earth, so we will always have waves in the seas• The earth will turn on its axis, so we will always have days and nights



As you teach geography, point out this aspect of permanence. When children ask questions about global warming, the future of the planet, pollution, etc., remindthem of what is permanent. With this solidity, you can more comfortably discusshow we must address the issues of concern, remembering to keep the discussionappropriate to their level of understanding:

• The night sky will always have stars, but we may not be able to see thembecause of air pollution. They are still there. What could we all do to reduceair pollution so that we can see the stars again? This could lead to activitiesaimed at discovering causes of air and light pollution, perhaps a night class with a telescope, perhaps charts showing how turning off lights not only saves electricity but reduces light pollution.

- Here is the very useful education page of theInternational Dark Sky Association ( http://www.darksky.org ) which has somegood downloads

- For this and the following topics, the EcoSchools (http://www.eco-schools.org.uk )programme is an excellent resource

• The seasons – summer, autumn, winter, spring – will always occur andalways in that order, though they may be hotter and rainier than in the pastbecause of too much carbon in the atmosphere. How can we reduce thecarbon and increase the oxygen? This particular discussion could beexpanded to include tree-planting, via one of the many, many programmesnow in existence.

- The Plant a Billion Trees site ( http://www.plantabillion.org )teaches about trees of the Atlantic Rainforest and acceptsdonations.

- The Prince’s Rainforests Project for Schools ( http://schools.raiforestsos.org/teachers ) has numerouslessons and activities to download



• The moon will always be in the sky and will always circle the earth, pullingthe oceans with its gravity and making waves. The waves will always bethere, but they might be full of rubbish or empty of fish because of pollution or the waters warming. How can we clean up the rivers andoceans and stop polluting them? This discussion could lead to involvementin some of the many programmes for cleaning up beaches, rescuing seabirds and animals, etc.

- The UK Rivers Network ( http://www.ukrivers.net/pollution )has some good resources dealing with pollution

- The Ocean Project ( http://www.theoceanproject.org )

is full of information and ideas on how to save the oceans

By consistently teaching what is permanent we can approach our problems withgreater confidence, and help our children to see their future not with fear but withhope.



Finding Security In Nature’s Repetitions

Using the solstices as an illustration, we can move to the next of the mostfundamental lessons of nature: repetition.

Repetition is observed everywhere in nature. The seasonal cycle repeats. Theprocesses of seeds falling, germinating, sprouting leaves, growing into plantsrepeat. The moon's cyclical waxing and waning repeats. There are millions of species identified and all of them have repetition in their behaviour as animals anddevelopment as plants. It is repetition that gives us an almost inborn certainty thatnothing ends forever but will begin again. For small children, this is a source of comfort and security.

Learning to observe it in nature is also the beginning of developing an enquiringmind. Encourage children to keep track of the phases of the moon all year long.

Above the nature table, keep a cut-out moon that is at the same phase as is the realmoon. Go outdoors and look for repetition - in a plant's repeat flowering, in the way all of the flowers on a plant are the same, in the way ants all repeat the to-and-fro of food gathering along the same path. There are innumerable examples.Help the children to find something that is repeating and to draw it or write aboutit.

Solstices repeat twice a year. They mark the days when the sun is as far from thezenith as it can go before it begins to move slowly back again. Put differently, it isthe day when summer and winter have reached their midway point in theirrespective hemispheres.

Where it is the winter solstice, people for centuries in both the northern andsouthern hemispheres have celebrated the day as a turning point, a time when theshortening of days ceases and long hours of darkness begin to lessen. Varioussymbols and rituals celebrate that the time of cold, trees without leaves, no flowers,animals either hibernating or gone -- in short, the time of dying -- has stopped,and spring, with all of its life, will return. In many pre-Christian societies, fromNew Zealand to Norway, the winter solstice was the beginning of the new year.



Where it is the summer solstice, it is the peak of life, fruition and flowering.Again, there are celebrations, midnight fires, a heady exultation in the plenitude of nature. The same sense of it being a turning point is present, though in thesummer it is usually with poignancy and the awareness that the days will begin togrow shorter and colder. Then, leaves will fall, birds will migrate, animals willhibernate, until it will seem that the whole world has died. Then, with spring, it will come to life again.

The repetitions of the solstices and equinoxes will go on forever. Knowing this,looking for it and for other repetitions, will help to give children the security fromnature that they need in order to face the future and deal with the environmentalproblems that are ahead.

Security From Nature’s Patterns

After permanence and repetition, one of nature's most important and beautifullessons is pattern. Nature is not chaos; nature is pattern and the compulsion topattern. Whether a spider's web, bodily construction, petal arrangement in

flowers, patterning is everywhere, within and without. Our need to reason is,ultimately, our need to see and understand the pattern of something.

Teaching a child to observe the patterns in nature will help even further to developan enquiring mind. Begin with the simplest: pairs in our construction. We havetwo eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two arms, two legs. With pictures of animals,including birds and insects, discuss pairs in our structure with children.

Move on to plants, where pattern continues but is different. Look at the veins inleaves, which branch off from a central trunk, sometimes opposite, sometimes

alternate. Look at flowers that may have three, four, five six, or more petals. Look at the fur of the big cats, the wings of butterflies. Go outdoors and let each childtell of a pattern he or she can observe. There are thousands of workbook pagesteaching pattern recognition. The origin is nature, so why not use that? It is muchmore attractive and fun and better rooted in reality.



Being able to observe a pattern, recognize its structure leads the mind to be able topredict what the pattern maker will do next. Correct prediction is integral toscientific discovery. Using something as simple as a vine, help your observers to

look at how the leaves grow along it, while you keep the end covered. Slowly revealing more, let them predict where the next leaf will be -- opposite, alternate,in twos or singular. With something as simple as a flower, point out how the budsgrow, examine the opened flowers, lead the children to predict how the flowers will look when the other buds open. Repeat exercises like this many times withmany different plants and animals, until the children begin to tell you of theirindependent observations of pattern, and find security in being able to “figure out”about, on a basic level, the world around them.

Permanence, repetition and pattern are what we can observe in nature. They aresolid facts on which children can begin to build a sense of certainty about thenatural world. Teach them to see the absolute permanence of the seasons, nightand day, and they will learn security. Teach them to see the repetition and patternand they will learn to reason well. Teach them to love the beauty of nature, andthey will want to preserve it.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Anne Morddel is the author of “The Big Field : a Child’s Year Under the SouthernCross”, a children’s picture book about life in the Atlantic Rainforest, available

from http://www.morddeleditions.com and fromhttp://www.seasons-south-and-north.co.uk

a child's security in the face of global warming

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